


melting point

by morthael



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Galra Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Massages, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-TBP, Quintessence-Sensitive Keith (Voltron), Sort Of, Touch-Starved Keith (Voltron), Touch-Starved Shiro (Voltron), and there was only one bed, stranded on an alien planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morthael/pseuds/morthael
Summary: On the long way back to Earth, a freak blizzard grounds the Lions on a frozen planet. Cut off from the rest, Shiro struggles with his new body, Keith’s strange fever, and the space that’s formed between them in the aftermath of their fight.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 183
Collections: Sheithmark 2021





	melting point

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so excited to show you my creation for Sheithmark! This event has been so fun to create for and collab on. I played trope bingo and put the list of my tropes in the end notes.
> 
> Huge thanks to @[JackieArtsie](https://twitter.com/JackieArtsie) who helped come up with the story idea with me and helped whenever I was stuck, cheered me on, and drew art in collab with me! I loved working with you and had so much fun brainstorming with you! Edited to add: a link to the art [here](https://twitter.com/JackieArtsie/status/1356960707217141760)!
> 
> Thank you also to my amazing beta, @[yolkswagen2](https://twitter.com/yolkswagen2) for reading over this and sanity checking for me and being SO LOVELY with your comments and cheer reading! You saved me!

The Lions are exhausted, and so are their paladins.

Shiro can see it in their eyes, ever present on the comms screen of the Black Lion. In their enforced isolation, the paladins find comfort in each other’s images, the only home they have left on the long journey to Earth.

He hears it in the barely there tremor of Allura’s voice as she urges Blue to move, watches the tired cant of Keith’s head, bowed over the controls. More than that, he _feels_ the fatigue, wrapped up in a low buzz that thrums in the back of his mind. _Black_ , he thinks, a muted echo of a connection, and her paladin, slumped at the console.

Keith, who has taken up the mantle of leadership while swallowing back any complaint. He’s grown so much, as have the others, but –

_Keith_. He’s filled out in the way Shiro always knew he could. A controlled burn rather than a raging wildfire. Shiro doesn’t miss the fact that he’s taller, broader, long hair curling even longer. He fills in the gaps with poached memories from the _other_ him, and it’s like watching through a fogged window.

There they are, the paladins grown and bonded. And there he is, Shiro. Spinning his wheels, recursive like the astral plane.

A sharp burst of static crackles over the comms – not from Black’s cockpit, but Green. It’s too loud, the way everything’s been kind of too much for him recently, and Shiro flinches.

Keith recognises the movement, of course, sees it out of the corner of his eye. Though he doesn’t meet Shiro’s gaze, his gloved hand still reaches out, dials the volume from Pidge’s feed down.

“What is it, Pidge?” Keith asks wearily.

Pidge isn’t looking at the screen; she’s frowning, eyes darting around some unseen blip of information before her.

“Scanners just picked up a large star,” she says, her fingers moving with practised ease as she types something out. “It looks stable.”

“Okay. Run a scan for planets in the system.”

“It would be good for the Lions to have a chance to rest,” Allura says, perking up. Keith nods.

“If there’s anything – a power source like that faunatonium from before,” he says. “We need any scrap of energy we can get for the Lions.”

A beep from Pidge’s monitor. “I’ve got it!” The sound is less shrill this time. Shiro digs his fingers into the comforting plush of Keith’s headrest, smooth material soft even through his glove.

“One planet,” Pidge tells them. “I’m getting energy readings from it. A lot of it, and not just natural. There’s life on that planet, developed life.”

“Oh, no no no,” Hunk warbles through the speakers, “Not with our track record. I am _so_ not up for dealing with possibly homicidal civilised aliens. Nope, no thank you.”

“We’ll be losing more time to get back to Earth if we stop,” Pidge says, but it’s hesitant. She’s eager to get back to her family, but it’s tempered by a new mindfulness. Shiro smiles at that. 

But Keith grits his teeth. Shiro doesn’t think he should be able to, at this distance, but he can hear the brief grind of molars. “We need to get another energy source,” he argues.

A brief moment of hesitation, and then Lance’s screen fires into view. “Keith’s right,” he says, apologetically. “Red’s strong, but the Lions won’t make it back to Earth at this rate. We should stop and check it out.”

“Thanks, Lance,” Keith mutters. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Shiro feels a burst of pride, unwillingly dampened by the melancholy rolls through him. They’ve all grown in his absence, paladin bond bringing them closer as a team. It’s inspiring as much as it gnaws on him, but Shiro pushes it down. He’s not really jealous, just yearning. They’ve settled, yet he still hasn’t found his footing.

The Lions smoothly pivot as one towards the direction of Pidge’s scanner. They’re going slow, but still fast enough that the planet still shoots into view within minutes. It’s small, greyish, with a complete swirling cloud cover over its atmosphere, blanketing the entire planet surface in an impenetrable mist.

“You sure there’s something down there?” Hunk worries. There’s a frown on Keith’s face, and it only deepens at his words.

Pidge pings a location to their screens. It comes up with a muted beep. “There’s a large energy reading coming from this location,” she says. “We should head down here.”

Keith straightens, determination settling over his face. “Alright, everyone follow me,” he calls out, and pushes Black’s controls forward.

They drop towards the planet. The clouds obscure whatever objective they’re heading towards, but Pidge’s tech guides them without fail.

The Lions shudder a little as they break past the first layer of cloud – the movement rumbles through Black, and Shiro grips the chair a bit more securely, widening his stance and keeping his knees loose.

“Sorry,” Keith says, “Hold on tight.”

“Doing my best,” Shiro says dryly with his single arm digging into the headrest, and Keith looks stricken.

“I – ” he starts, but then the Lions push past the next layer of white, and suddenly it’s not cloud at all, but – Black lurches as sleet batters into the viewport, an onslaught of white that rocks them back with the force of it.

“I can’t see any of you anymore!” Allura cries over the comms.

Everything’s whited out – the sleet turns into heavy ice and snow whips against Black’s hull, and even through layers of cosmic metal Shiro can pick up the howl of the vicious storm outside. Another jolt throws Shiro against the wall.

“Shiro!” Keith shouts desperately. His eyes dart between Shiro and the controls. “Everyone, pull up! We have to get out of this blizzard!”

“I can’t! My Lion’s not responding!” Lance yells back.

A fresh gust of wind slams into Black, ripping them into a sideways roll. They don’t recover from the knock – Shiro struggles to stagger back onto his feet. He sees Keith jerk at the controls, once, and then again more frantically as Black responds sluggishly to his touch. Shiro can only clutch at the wall as Keith’s breathing grows more and more panicky.

“There’s something wrong with this snow!” Pidge cries, and her voice is garbled, the communicator turning it into a staticky fizzle. “It’s – …with my Lion’s controls – can’t – …interference – !”

“Pidge?” Keith says, voice rising. “Lance? Come in!”

Another buffet of wind, and they’re tumbling headfirst forward, hurtling towards the ground at speed. A veil of white all around them, the rest of the paladins nothing but static and silence.

Black’s a void of quiet that rises up like the astral plane. Everything feels muted, too cold and too far, and Keith’s voice is a muted shout that barely cuts through the roar of nothingness. Shiro can’t reach out with his one arm without losing his balance; he cries out, but he can’t hear it.

They crash.

*

It’s not as bad as it could have been.

Shiro unwinds his limbs one by one from the brace position, tensing each muscle group in sequence, relief unspooling in him when there’s no sudden flash of pain anywhere. He clenches and unclenches his hand a few more times, back and forth, just to make sure there’s still feeling.

They’ve landed in some kind of snowdrift, the surface soft enough that Black’s driven a hard wedge into the ground. The snowstorm continues to snap around them, but it’s not as wild as it was in the upper atmosphere.

Shiro turns to Keith, the next check now that they’re not in immediate danger. He’s slumped over the controls, and at that, a sharp pulse of panic spikes through Shiro.

“Keith,” he whispers, tentatively reaching forward to touch his shoulder. If he’s hurt –

Keith makes a low noise, a rasp caught in the back of his throat. It’s not a pretty sound, but he uncurls at the press of Shiro’s hand on his shoulder, pushing to his feet.

“I’m fine, Shiro,” he mumbles. His head’s down, but when Shiro slides his hand in closer, towards the collar of his paladin armour and then up and to his cheek, he looks up sharply, breath stuttering on the intake. His hands shudder, an aborted motion upwards, but remain limply at his sides.

Keith’s entire body practically radiates tiredness; his eyes are ringed with shadows, and Shiro can see the self-recrimination lurking in the severe cut of his eyebrows. He wants to gentle them, press reassurance into every word.

“Are you hurt?” Shiro says. He looks Keith up and down, and if there’s anything good that’s come from being dead and disconnected from his body, it’s how hyperaware each sense is; he’s confident in spotting even the slightest sign of distress. On the upsweep, sees Keith staring back at him with the same intensity, categorically mapping his body with his eyes.

“I’m fine,” Keith repeats. He hesitates. “And what – what about you?”

“It’s alright,” Shiro cuts in gently. He tucks a stray strand of hair behind Keith’s ear, then gives his shoulder a quick squeeze before letting him go. Keith sways, almost like he’s chasing the touch, before straightening and righting himself. “I’m okay as well. We should try and get in contact with the rest and then figure a way out of here.”

Keith opens his mouth, then seems to think better of it, looking away.

“Yeah,” he says finally, fiddling with the console. “Yeah.”

His posture seems to slump a little more and Shiro wants desperately, desperately to take some of the burden off those shoulders.

“Keith,” he says, but Keith holds himself tense and away from him. Shiro’s heart clenches, and for a fleeting moment there’s an insurmountable distance between them, like something he could reach out for and never touch. Keith’s so far out of reach, and Shiro’s left spinning on his axis like the only single stationary object in the entire universe.

Outside, the wind dies down and the snow whipping against the Lion eases, giving way to clear, glittering flakes that almost glow from the light of this planet’s sun.

The comm crackles to life.

“ – Keith…! Keith!”

Shiro hears Hunk’s panicky tones first.

“Keith and Shiro here,” Keith says. Images of the other paladins flicker onto the screen, but they’re shaky, buzzing with interference.

“What _happened?_ ” Pidge groans. “My Lion just spun out as soon as the blizzard hit us, like something was jamming her controls.”

Allura flickers on-screen. “The same happened with Blue,” she confirms.

Lance is the last to appear, grunting in agreement. “Me as well.”

“Is everyone alright?” Keith says. A chorus of affirmatives answers him; they’re all slightly banged up, but otherwise fine, the healthy snow layer luckily cushioning their impact with the ground.

“I think we were all blown in different directions in the storm,” Keith muses. “Pidge, can you see if you can get everyone’s locations?”

Shiro hears muffled thumping from the Green Lion’s cockpit. “My scanners are fried,” Pidge grumbles after a moment. “I can’t pick up anything. I think the blizzard’s got something to do with it.” She pauses. “But wait, I think I can see Hunk’s lion from here!”

Hunk swivels, squinting off into the distance. “Hey, you’re right!” 

“Alright, here’s what we need to do,” Keith says. The rest of the paladins refocus their attention on him quickly, Shiro notices with simmering pride. “Our Lions are still unresponsive, so we just need to wait until they charge back up and for the storm to pass, then we’ll – ”

As if it was listening in to his words, the wind kicks up again even harder than before, and a spray of ice smashes against the view port, completely obscuring the outside world. The paladins’ images blink once, then go completely blank. Not even static – just flat silence, before the Black Lion hums and the overhead lights dim into nothingness.

It’s quiet in the cabin for a moment – then, Keith presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, rubbing. He’s pressed up against the console, supporting his weight with it.

“Keith?” Shiro says. He doesn’t know what to do with his hand, whether or not to reach out, comfort him.

“Sorry,” Keith mutters. “Just tired. Headache.” He drags his hands away from his face.

“Keith.” Shiro’s firm now, because something’s wrong, and he knows it’s wrong – the distance carves at his newly beating heart, and he suspects it’s to do with the topic that neither of them have broached since Black saved the both of them.

Something to do with the way Shiro will catch Keith staring at him, the torn metal stump of his shoulder, his eyes darting furtively away when he’s caught.

He reaches out, latching onto Keith’s shoulder again. He feels every muscle that Keith tenses under his touch, feels how he holds himself like he’s ready to bolt.

It’s strikingly similar to how he used to be back at the Garrison, wary and skittish.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Shiro says softly. “About anything on your mind, Keith.”

Keith swallows. Hesitates. “I know. I – I’m…”

A light starts blinking in the centre console. It’s a short range communicator, useful only when there’s too much interference with their normal devices.

“We’re being hailed,” Keith says dully. “I’ll get it.” He wisps away again, a single sinewy flex of his body that carries him out of Shiro’s hold.

Shiro almost makes a sound of frustration then, inhibitions loosened from a period spent where he could scream and scream without sound or reply. But he catches it, cages it back into his body.

The screen warps but then comes into sharp relief, and – Pidge was right, there _is_ life on this white planet. An alien stands primly in view, and it looks humanoid, except for the thick, dark carapace that curls around its head, and downwards, a rocky shell that wraps around its body. The exposed skin beneath the shell is pale, translucent; almost the same colour as their snowy surrounds.

It blinks two membranous eyes at Keith and Shiro.

“I welcome you, visitors of Zaleg,” it rumbles, and its – his? – voice sounds like glass grinding, sending shivers of uncomfortable sensitivity straight to Shiro’s brain. He blinks rapidly, trying to focus.

_Be a diplomat, Shirogane,_ he thinks.

“My name is Representative Graupe,” the alien continues. His voice crackles through the Black Lion. “Though I wish that we had met more pleasantly. You have come during a rime blizzard event. It is not surprising that you fell from the sky.”

“We’re – ” Keith flings his hand backwards, encompassing him and Shiro. “We’re paladins of Voltron. We have friends, the other paladins, they must have landed close by. We need to find them and get off this planet.”

A translucent eyelid flickers downwards over Representative Graupe’s eyes. Shiro is mildly disconcerted to find that he can still see the muted sclera of the alien past that layer of skin.

“I’m afraid that is not possible,” he grates. “The blizzards cut off long-range communications between zones. We are in Sector Zeta Eight. If you cannot contact your friends, they fall outside of the sphere. Communication will resume outside of the zone once the storm passes.”

Keith’s hands clench. “And when will that be?”

Shiro comes up to stand beside him, lending what little silent comfort his presence can.

The alien links long, spindly, and equally milky transparent fingers together. He waves the interconnected digits in what Shiro thinks might be in apology. If he turns his head to the side and squints.

“The rime storms of Zaleg last for movements at a time,” Graupe says. “You will not be able to leave or contact your friends until then.”

“ _What?_ ” Keith hisses. Some of the light comes back into him, but it’s sharp, brittle. “What are you talking about? We need to get off this planet, _now_!”

“Keith,” Shiro murmurs. Keith stiffens, and then hisses out a heated sigh.

The alien seems to echo him, broken glass rattling through the exposed column of his chest. “I will send a transport to collect you,” he says.

*

The transport ship takes some time to arrive.

Keith finally turns back to Shiro. He hesitates and prevaricates, which Shiro’s surprised to see. Keith’s usually so straightforward.

He seems to gather himself enough. His hand brushes downwards, past the lit stripe of his thigh, and with a flash of light, the black bayard is in Keith’s hand. Shiro blinks steadily down at him.

“Here.” Keith holds out the bayard to him, but when Shiro stays still he crosses the floor jerkily, hesitating before scooping up Shiro’s hand and curling his fingers around it. His hand burns like a brand where it touches the skin-tight fabric of Shiro’s glove.

Keith steps back. “It’s yours,” he says, licking his lips. They’re a little chapped from the dry and cold air that’s starting to steadily leak into the cockpit. “So you should take it.”

Shiro can still feel the burning imprint of where Keith’s fingers had curled around his.

He can feel the jagged fire of the bayard lancing through metal skin. He jerks at the memory.

“Keith, this…” his hand feels alien around the smooth material. “You’re the Black Paladin now. You deserve this, not me.”

Not after what he – the other him – had done.

Keith looks away. “You are, too,” he whispers furiously. “You deserve it as much as – more than – I do.” His hand reaches back, touching the place where Shiro knows a sheath sits on the small of his back. “I’ve got my blade. And we’re on a new planet, we don’t know if the aliens are dangerous – I’m not gonna let you just be defenceless.”

Shiro manages a smile. “I know you’d protect me.”

For some reason Keith flushes. “I will,” he says, and it’s not a claim but a promise of certainty. “But. It’s yours too. Please, Shiro.”

Shiro doesn’t have the defences for that word; it’s used so sparingly and for so little. It would be worth it, just to make Keith happy.

“Okay,” he sighs. The black bayard lights with another glow and absorbs into his armour. And out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees Keith’s shoulders relax incrementally.

From outside comes a grinding noise – the layer of white covering Black’s front screen melts into sluice, and when Shiro peers out, there’s a vehicle painted a deep, vivid red all over, burrowing through the collection of snow that’s started to bury them. The front of it glows, and the hard bundled ice covering Black’s maw softens and melts apart.

“Looks like our ride is here,” Shiro says. 

*

The vehicle is piloted by another alien, with the same luminous skin and hard outer shell as the first. The vehicle itself is a design Shiro hasn’t seen before – a sleek, dynamic shape with some kind of laser mounted on its nose to clear snow.

And the ‘snow’ on this planet really does look and feel like Earth’s, if not a tad more crumbly. Shiro drags his hand through some of it as they leave the Black Lion, air clouding immediately outwards at the first breath of alien air. It’s dry and powdery, as perfect as the conditions could be during ski season in Hokkaido. For a moment, if he closes his eyes to the grey landscape and unfamiliar surrounds, Shiro could imagine himself back on Earth, breathing in punchy breaths at the base of the slopes.

The illusion is over all too soon; the hatch of the vehicle closes and they lift off, skimming the surface of the snow as the storm begins to swirl harder. Like windscreen wipers, the laser heat blasts the snow from the front as fast as it falls.

The alien flies them across the desolate landscape – it’s like a never-ending dune of snow, stretching out as far as the eye can see. There are no structures, buildings of any type that Shiro can spot – but his unspoken query is answered moments later as they reach a huge metal hatch, jutting slightly out of the ground. He’d missed it, taking it for an outcropping of rock. The hatch hisses open as they near it, revealing a tunnel that seems to crawl downwards into the planet. Next to him, Keith tenses; it must look and feel like the perfect trap.

Shiro touches his thigh, tracing over where the black bayard is stored in his armour. Could he even call it to him? Would it recognise him?

He looks at Keith. _We’re okay,_ he mouths.

Keith gives him a look in return. It’s full of a mix of emotions that Shiro can’t decipher, and he’s working his way through them as they come to a stop, parked in what looks like an underground bunker. The alien gestures them out, and as Shiro pokes his body outside, Keith catches his shoulder in a loose grasp.

It’s not at all like the solid squeezes he’s come to appreciate, and Keith lets go as soon as Shiro turns, but the ghost of the familiar weight still sends a shiver of sensation through him.

Keith ducks close to him.

“Do you feel…strange?” Keith asks lowly, hopefully out of earshot of the alien.

“Strange how?” Shiro whispers back. They’re standing the closest they’ve been ever since they started on the journey back, and the part of him that’s starved for contact wants to stay there, so close he can almost feel the heat radiating off Keith’s skin. So much warmer than the frigid air around them.

Keith shakes his head, grimacing like he’s irritated with himself. “It’s...” He hesitates. “It’s probably nothing. I’m just on edge. Don’t worry.”

The alien leads them to a door. “Representative Graupe will speak with you,” it mutters, voice full of ground rocks, and ushers them in.

It’s a comfortable antechamber that they find themselves in – the walls are sharp, structured lines that hold the weight of the bunker steadily, but glittering pieces of pottery decorate the room, elegant and brightening the chamber with an ethereal sort of glow.

“Welcome, again,” Graupe says solemnly. He’s perched on a thin column that looks like a stool of sorts; but rises to meet them.

“We need to find a way off this planet,” Keith cuts in swiftly before the alien can continue. His voice is steady, but shot with a raspy undertone that betrays his disquiet.

Graupe’s carapace twists and he wriggles in discomfort. “You will find it extremely difficult to leave while the rime blizzard continues,” he says. “In fact, it will be impossible for any craft to – ”

“Representative,” Shiro interrupts. “You said that the blizzards might take movements to pass. We don’t have that time to waste.”

Graupe’s membranous eyes narrow. “You do not understand,” he grinds out. “Rime not only obscures communications; it also saps power. Communication between zones is impossible at this time. Any ship will fall apart before it reaches the upper atmosphere of Zaleg.”

They argue back and forth. All the while, Shiro hears the increasing creak of stiff fabric that’s Keith’s gloved fists, curled into balls.

“A race of people lives on this planet,” Shiro says finally, voice measured. “You have technology, resources. You must have lived here for a long time. Surely there must be a way to leave.”

Graupe’s outer shell shivers a little.

“Perhaps…” he says after a moment. The prongs that encircle his head contract inwards with a creak, and then relax. “Please rest at this base awhile, paladins. I may have an idea that could benefit us mutually.”

*

Another alien escorts them from the antechamber and to a room – one that seems to have been prepared specifically for, as Graupe said, resting purposes, because the first thing that Shiro sees when the door hisses open is the bed.

Or, Shiro thinks, whatever is this alien species’ approximation of a bed – it’s circular, curved like a shallow bowl, but it has the layers of thick blankets and a silvery, fuzzy comforter piled on top which is all that’s needed to propel him forward, kicking off his boots as he goes, and with a second’s hesitation, unbuckling his chest piece as well, placing it down carefully.

“This is nice,” Shiro says, sitting down at the outermost edge of the bed, mindful of not falling in, and gathering a handful of fuzzy blanket. It’s silky soft against his fingertips, slightly furred but finer than any material he’s felt before – or is it just all new sensation, sparking at new nerve connections?

He’s suddenly cognizant of how tired he feels; not just the physical, though he hasn’t yet walked as many steps as he has today in this foreign body. It’s an empty feeling, like his soul’s rattled loose in his body and he’s adrift, still hanging around somewhere in the cosmos. Falling behind.

He lifts his hand from the blankets, rubbing tiredly at the join between twisted metal and flesh at his shoulder. The stump doesn’t bother him as much as the creeping feeling of machine parts, now lifeless, reaching and threading through his shoulder.

From in front, Shiro hears a soft noise; he looks up and it’s Keith, staring at his shoulder with distress swimming murkily in those dark eyes. He snaps his head away as Shiro looks at him, turning the motion into an awkward turn of his body.

“Keith…” Shiro says, into the quiet. He thinks he gets it, but he knows from experience he’ll do better going slow than approaching too fast. “Come over here, will you?”

Keith reluctantly turns to face him, taking a step towards the bed.

“Shoes off, we’re indoors,” Shiro interrupts. That tugs a quick, almost unwilling smile from Keith, barely a twist of his lips.

“Does it bother you?” Keith says, hushed, after he’s unlatched his boots and kicked them over to where Shiro’s are by the door. He slinks over towards the bed, hovering where he doesn’t quite reach it. He waves his hand towards Shiro’s arm, clearly not quite trusting his voice to address it directly.

“Mmm.” Shiro rolls his shoulder experimentally. Keith’s fingers skitter back at the movement.

He considers for a while.

“I guess it’s not so bad,” he ends up settling for. “For one, my arm’s a lot lighter than it used to be. It’s a bit of a relief, actually.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith says.

“Don’t be.”

Keith bites his lip. He worries it between his teeth so hard that Shiro's sure he’ll draw blood. “You never mentioned it,” he says, without accusation, and then moves closer still, pressed between Shiro’s legs.

“Keith – ?”

A hand touches the slope of Shiro’s neck, cautiously skirting down until it touches the seam of his prosthetic. Shocked, Shiro’s eyes flutter closed, and when Keith’s fingers curl in, digging into the meat of his shoulder, he lets out an involuntary, pained whine. 

Keith’s fingers still in surprise, slackening. His hand on Shiro’s shoulder is equal parts burning and bliss; he tries to angle himself closer. This simple touch is enough to send frissons through his body. He’s a single, starved nerve, firing wildly at the gentlest contact.

“Don’t stop,” Shiro chokes out, and he hears a breathy intake, a gulp of air, but Keith’s fingers, mercifully, start moving again.

It’s not even a touch to bare skin, but Shiro shivers through it anyway; Keith’s thumb swishes past his collarbone and rubs comforting circles into his skin, and it’s all he can focus on, his world narrowing down to the pads of Keith’s fingers working methodically into his shoulder, every move sparking a tremor that skitters down his spine. He thinks he blanks out, a little.

When he comes to, Keith’s still there, fingers not doing much more than smoothing down the plane of his neck, though even that is enough to unsteady his breathing, hitching when blunt nails accidentally catch and tug at the tight weave of his under suit.

Keith’s cheeks are red, though he’s still determinedly touching Shiro. A bead of sweat glistens at the root of his hairline, but it’s only when Keith faintly sways on his feet that the fog around Shiro’s brain lifts.

Keith’s so earnest, and so good; he offers himself up to Shiro wholeheartedly even if it tests his own limits. His eyes, dark as dusk, flutter before slamming back upwards, and Shiro feels a different ache now, in his chest, a longing that feels as old as the stars, and a swell of protectiveness, to give back – to touch and hold and reassure.

Shiro doesn’t say any of the things that swirl frighteningly through his mind; instead, he catches Keith’s wrist, tugs him towards the edge of the bed. He goes without a fight, the ease of the action betraying him.

“You’re running hot,” Shiro says, his voice a gravelly rumble as he lifts his hand to lay against Keith’s forehead. He seems to run even hotter at the words, heat flaring against Shiro’s knuckles. “You said you had a headache. Do you want me to…?”

Keith stares at him. Shiro retreats, only for a second, to squeeze his fingers through the air suggestively in a poor imitation of a massage.

Keith’s tongue flicks out again, just barely wetting his lips – he’s been doing that a lot, lately, Shiro thinks, eyes fixating on the brief shine of spit on his mouth – and the blush crawls down his cheeks. He must be coming down with a cold. “You know, I can be pretty _handy_ with this,” he adds helpfully.

Keith snorts, an ungraceful sound that’s charming to Shiro anyway. In response, Shiro presses his thumb into Keith’s temple, and feels the way Keith suddenly stills at that, nothing but the sound of their combined breathing punctuating the small space between them. Soft strands of hair tickle at his fingers.

He’s done this before, with Keith, only it was back at the Garrison, and Keith had been sick with a migraine that he hadn’t told Shiro about until he was practically collapsing on the way back from a library study session.

Shiro had taken him back to his room, rooting around in Keith’s sparse drawers for some ibuprofen. He’d sat down next to him, cradling his head and rubbing firm circles into his skin while Keith froze with the sensation.

From how Keith’s barely breathing now with Shiro, he must also be remembering that time.

“How are you feeling?” Shiro floats the words between them, gently. He always wants to be gentle with this version of Keith, the one who’s open and vulnerable with him in turn. 

Keith blinks his eyes open, eyelashes just grazing Shiro’s index finger with the movement. A brief hesitation, and then he’s moving back, carefully pulling Shiro’s hand off his forehead and returning it to him.

“I’m fine, Shiro,” he says, with a little waver in his voice.

“Try to be honest,” Shiro urges him.

Keith flinches. “I’m – it’s just a headache,” he says, protesting.

Shiro waits. The expectant silence is always the best way to flush out Keith’s words.

“This planet sets my teeth on edge,” he admits, slumping. “We can’t afford to waste any more time here, but we’re stuck in this stupid storm and I feel like we’re just…”

“Spinning our wheels?” Shiro supplies. Keith shrugs a helpless shoulder in agreement.

“Yeah,” Shiro says. “I know how that feels.”

There’s still a guarded edge to him, Shiro thinks, there’s still an unexplained space that Keith puts between them, like he’s afraid to reach out – and –

Shiro’s mind spins. That’s what it is, isn’t it? Those careful retreats and aborted movements, coiled wariness when facing Shiro. It hasn’t been that long since their fight, since Shiro brutally attacked him, really, and Keith – by now, he knows Keith wouldn’t hesitate to do anything for him, but – it must pain him, frighten him to be in the same space as Shiro. To have the body of the clone that almost killed him, that pressed hot fire into his jaw, crowding him.

Shiro’s heart squeezes with longing. Selfishly, he wants to say more, wants to touch more. But he holds back, and slowly, Keith relaxes, until the light on the wall flashes to life, winking urgently in an incoming message. 

They glance at each other.

The wall, which had just been a dark, blank wall, comes to life. It’s Graupe, and his shell expands and contracts around him in excited pulses.

“Paladins,” he says. “I have a proposal that will assist your swift departure of Zaleg.”

Shiro stands.

“What you must understand is that the rime is the key to both Zaleg’s isolation and freedom,” continues Graupe. “Rime in freefall is an effective disruptor of energy signals, but once refined, it is one of the most potent energy sources in the universe. Since…the fall of the Galra Empire, rime has been the key to Zaleg’s continued prosperity and peace.”

“So if there was enough refined rime, we’d have enough power for the Lions to leave the planet?” Keith asks wearily.

“Correct,” says Graupe. “And enough power to contact your friends. However…”

Shiro catches something in the alien’s expression, a trick of the light or a shadow across his translucent eyelids, gone before he can make sense of it.

“We cannot spare enough rime for your purposes,” Graupe says. “Much of our production is required to keep the sector running. Though we have a....unconventional solution for that.”

The words strike a chord of wariness in Shiro.

“Where we are, Base Zeta Eight, sits close to the foot of the Crystal Mountain. It is a mountain that holds a network of rime tunnels, formed from many deca-phoebs of natural collection. The deposit of rime that grows in those tunnels is special. It is old and crystallised, many times more potent than naturally forming rime. But it is far too dangerous and slow to travel up that mountain to collect the crystal rime. Far too inefficient.”

“So, what, you want us to collect it for you?” Keith snorts. “We’re not going to be much faster, in these conditions.”

Graupe clicks. “Your Lion, it is a warship, is it not?” he says. “If you fire it upon the mountain, the tunnels will collapse. That way, the rime will be unearthed, easy to collect.”

Keith’s jaw drops. “You want us to blow up the mountain?”

In any other situation, Shiro would probably be gleeful at the thought of wanton, sanctioned destruction. Kind of like those stress relief rooms that he’s heard of back on Earth, where people pay to be allowed to smash things up with a bat.

But this sounds…dangerous, and Shiro says as much to the alien. “And, besides,” he says, suspicious, “If it was that easy to get the crystallised rime, why haven’t you blown it to pieces already?”

“We Zalesians have made use of the rime for a long time, it is true,” says Graupe, “But we do not have a weapon powerful enough to bring down that mountain.”

Shiro shares another glance with Keith.

“I will show you the base of the mountain,” Graupe declares into the silence. “You will see the rime refinery.”

*

The rime refinery, as it turns out, is another underground facility. It’s not far from their bunker. It can’t be, because a longer travel distance in the snow – the rime, Shiro corrects himself – would risk frying the delicate electronics of their vehicle. They’re still in Sector Zeta Eight, according to Graupe, and the swirling blizzard outside only seems to have gotten worse, a solid curtain of white.

Next to him, Keith stumbles before catching himself, blinking his eyes shut momentarily. When he opens them, his gaze remains a little unfocused.

Shiro itches to reach out.

“Alright there?” he says instead.

Keith shakes his head, his age-old signal for _I’m fine_ , and then has to close his eyes again, sharp teeth gritting.

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro says, more urgently.

His eyes fly open with a gasp. “It’s just a headache, Shiro,” he snaps, “It’s getting worse but it’ll go away. You don’t need to – ”

Keith cuts himself off with an audible click to his jaw. He doesn’t say anything after that, and with lead in his stomach, neither does Shiro.

Graupe, who’s been walking ahead of them, politely pretending not to be listening to their hissed conversation, leads them through a door and into another room. This one is raised on a platform, with a wide ring of windows looking down into a huge hall below.

The chamber below is filled with moving machinery – doing what, Shiro doesn’t know, but he sees a flash of white amongst the churning metal, reminiscent of the glittering statues that decorated Graupe’s meeting room.

“This is where the process of refining rime takes place,” Graupe says, his head-shell flaring proudly. “And it is where the crystal rime will be refined, once you obtain it.”

“How long will it take to refine?” Keith says.

“We will need to secure transports to bring the unearthed rime back to this facility. Then, the rime will need to be refined – and we have not worked with crystal rime in so long. It may take up to a phoeb to complete a batch for your use.” Graupe dips his head definitively.

“A – a phoeb,” Keith says, “That’s still way too long.”

Shiro agrees. “We need to find our friends as soon as possible. There _must_ be a way we can speed up this proc – ”

With a low rumble, the machinery below the platform slows and grinds to a stop. Then, the overhead lights begin powering off, darkness washing over the chamber line by line until it swarms past it and up.

The lights in their room flicker off, leaving only a dim red glow of an emergency sign in the far corner.

An alarm begins to shrill, and Shiro hates that the sound seems to be a universal standard. The sound pierces straight through his ears and feels like hot knives stabbing into his brain.

“What is going on,” he raises his head in time to see Keith growl, the sound momentarily breaking past the blaring of the siren. His blade isn’t activated, but it’s drawn in his hand.

Graupe looks terrified. “We’re under attack!” he shouts. “It’s a Raider – quick, we must leave!”

He scuttles towards the exit, and with his ears still ringing, Shiro groans and follows.

Graupe leads them at a breakneck pace, down a maze of grey, emergency-lit corridors, each turn marked by a set of heavy doors that slide shut with a groan of metal as they sprint past.

Shiro vaguely remembers the layout that they entered through; he speeds up, longer legs carrying him past Keith and Graupe, though with a determined grunt, Keith closes the distance as well.

At the end of the next hallway, the door starts closing well before they run through.

Shiro’s the first to reach it – he sprints past the threshold and whips around.

“Keith!” he cries – but Keith is there half a second later, crashing and almost bowling Shiro over with the force of his momentum. Shiro reaches out to steady him, and Keith’s hand reflexively squeezes around his bicep.

“Wait!”

The door closes on Graupe with a thud.

Shiro snorts out a soft laugh, and a shocked moment later, Keith follows him. The red glow haloes his hair, glints dimly off his teeth.

He’s still holding Keith, Shiro realises, arms around each other’s shoulders in a half embrace. He thinks he kind of wouldn’t mind if this continued forever, Keith’s hand steady on his arm and standing so close he can hear the draw and catch of his breath as he looks tentatively up at him. Keith breathes half with his nose and half with his mouth, and Shiro’s wired senses kick into overdrive at the sound of Keith’s breath sighing out of his lungs.

“Shiro?” Keith’s looking up at him still, eyes wide.

Shiro blinks rapidly away from the way every sense of his has zeroed in on Keith’s mouth and throat. They’re still caught up in this little almost hug of theirs, and _shit_ , Shiro hadn’t been trying to scare him but drinking him in had been a balm after the siren and –

There’s a soft noise from behind them.

Keith springs away, his blade arcing to life in a blaze of purple fire.

Shiro moves on instinct too, bayard flashing into his hand. He raises it high, and then –

A Zalesian has its arms raised, lightly clawed fingers empty. It’s short, thinner than Graupe, but with a thick carapace that entirely covers its head. The shell unravels before Shiro’s eyes as he pauses, bayard glowing but inactive, revealing a thin, translucent face and blinking, clear eyes.

“Peace, paladins of Voltron,” the alien says, “I mean you no harm.” The inflections in her voice are like skates pinging across a frozen lake – almost calming, if not for the rifle Shiro can see she has slung across her back.

Keith doesn’t back down. “How do you know who we are?” he demands. “Who are you?”

The alien shifts back further, palms still outstretched. “I am Neve,” she says. “I have been listening in to your conversations with the Representative. And I am afraid you are being misled.”

*

It’s late in the day when Neve takes them to the foot of the mountain. At least, that’s what Neve tells them – the blizzard is an endless stream of white that blots out the sky in a blanket of white.

The bunker that she takes them to is supposedly a forward base camp, but to Shiro, it’s more like a hole in the ground, a single cramped room with an adjoining door.

Next to him, Keith’s got his blade sheathed, but his entire body is rigid with tension.

“The Representatives represent nothing but the greed of the Zalesians,” Neve explains as Shiro taps through various collected datapads, each filled to the brim with blueprints of those rime processing machines. “The rime blizzards were not always so severe, nor did they used to last so long all at once. But ever since the fall of the Galra empire, rime has become an attractive energy resource. So the Representatives induced the storms –stopping at nothing to increase rime production across the planet – and leaving nothing for the rest of us.”

The alien lifts a metal ornament with a clear, glass-looking centre. She touches the rim of the device, and it burns to life – a lamp that flickers with an odd blue glow, throwing cool warmth across the room. She hangs it on a hook on the wall. 

The centre of the orb is a chip of clear crystal – like a shard of ice.

“Is that why Graupe called you a raider?” Shiro asks, curiously. “You use rime for a lot of things here. Is this how you get by?”

Neve shakes her head. The shell that curves around the back of her skull flexes, and Shiro hadn’t seen it before in the blackout of Graupe’s bunker, but each interlocking piece is ringed with that same glass-like material, bands of silvery jewellery that curve down her carapace.

“What I do is nothing more than disrupting the production,” she says, her voice ringing out like bells. “We were once a people that used rime for pleasure and art, not this mindless consumption. My family…we were in the business of crafting fine things. But there is no place for artisans in a world that plunders all the rime for gain, a universe that craves energy unlimited.”

She looks outwards, in the direction that surely leads to the mountain. “The Crystal Mountain is one of the last places on Zaleg that produces crystal rime. If you destroy it, you will destroy the last thing on this cursed planet that creates joy.” 

“Graupe told us it’s the only way to get enough rime to get us off planet,” Keith says, sort of roughly. He feels bad, Shiro thinks, but he’s pushing anyway, in the only way he knows how to. “We _have_ to do something.”

Neve scoffs. “The Representatives would tell you anything to bring that mountain down,” she says dismissively. “You don’t think they would have brought down an eternal blizzard if they couldn’t extricate themselves at will? There’s a take-off zone, well-guarded, in this sector. A clear and straight line to the gyro-satellite that warps the weather cycle on demand.”

Keith perks up. “Where is it?”

But Neve’s already shaking her head, light catching on the individual bands wrapped around her head-piece. “I can tell you for a price,” she says.

Shiro watches Keith’s face undergo a myriad of expressions, from hope to surprise to anger in a heartbeat.

“So that’s it?” he demands. In the flickering blue light of the lamp, his skin is ghostly, pinched and enraged.

“Tell us the price, then,” Shiro says. Keith turns his glare onto him, disbelieving and hurt.

“We’re just getting led around by every single fucking alien here, Shiro!” he bursts out, voice loud and scratchy and bouncing off the narrow walls. “We can’t – we don’t have time for this, how am I supposed to l – ”

Keith cuts himself off, rocketing to his feet unsteadily. “I’m going to do a perimeter check,” he practically growls, and then stomps out the door. There’s a shriek of wind before it’s abruptly silenced by the door hissing shut.

Neve looks at Shiro directly. “You don’t seem as perturbed as your friend,” she observes mildly.

Shiro shrugs. “From my experience, most people in this universe won’t do you a favour without asking for something in return.”

There’s only one person Shiro knows who’d do something completely selflessly, he thinks, without regard for a fair exchange, without thinking a moment for themselves.

Across the table, the alien hums. It’s a low, crooning sound.

“I will give you the coordinates,” she says, “In return for you collecting something from the caves of the Crystal Mountain.”

“Crystal rime,” Shiro says. He blinks slowly. “But what do you need it for?”

“It is the purest form of rime on the planet. When refined, it can be molded into the most beautiful of creations…or the most efficient of energies.” Neve clicks the prongs of her shell together. “And you will need some of that energy to escape the dampening effect of the blizzard, to reach the take-off point.”

“So, something for you and something for us?”

Neve’s pale lips twitch upwards into a smile. “Yes, something like that.”

“What do you plan to make from the rime?”

Neve’s hands rise up, smoothing down her carapace. “Deca-phoebs ago, we crafted all manner of things,” she says. “Sculptures, artworks, music boxes…there was nothing my family could not create. These _zouel_ ,” she touches the bands that ring around her curved outer shell, “Were all crafted from crystal rime.”

“ _Zouel_ ,” Shiro sounds it out. “Is that…jewellery?” At Neve’s blank look, he tries to clarify. “Like…ornaments, I suppose. Pretty things you wear on your body. Many people wear jewellery on Earth, where I come from. And there are lots of different types.”

“Yet you do not wear any… _jewellery_ ,” Neve observes. 

Shiro taps his fingers on his thigh. “There are a lot of reasons to wear them,” he says, “I just haven’t had any reason to.”

Neve seems genuinely interested in this discussion; she’s amazed and perturbed at the concept of earrings and piercings, but her eyes light up at the description of a bracelet – it’s similar in a way to her own bands, Shiro supposes.

“On Zaleg, we wear _zouel_ on our bodies to remind ourselves of the beauty and viciousness of nature and nature tamed,” Neve says, and wrinkles her nose: “Do you humans truly wear your jewellery just for the vanity of it?”

“Some people do,” Shiro answers slowly. He feels oddly defensive. “It can be a way of expressing yourself. But there are other reasons, too. Like a symbol of duty or love.” He tries to explain the concept of wearing a ring for a partner.

That seems to bring her down.

“Zalesians wear _zouel_ for partners, as well,” Neve says, sounding subdued. 

By the time Keith returns, Shiro’s well ensconced in his chair, listening to tales of rime sculptures as tall as a house, of Neve’s parents and children working rime together, of the tools and machinery used to melt and reshape the crystalline material. Keith’s face starts out stormy as he enters through the door, but his expression wavers and softens as he catches Shiro’s eye.

“Hey, Keith,” Shiro says, as gently as he can.

Still, Keith slumps, like he knows Shiro’s priming him for disappointment.

“What do we have to do?” he asks.

“You will be doing nothing more tonight,” Neve says from across the table. “It is too dangerous to climb the mountain at night, so you will sleep, and then you will leave when the sun rises in the morning.”

Shiro fills Keith in as they shuffle across the cramped space of the bunker; Neve slides something out from the wall that looks like a bunk, and Shiro has to bite back a laugh when he sees that it’s the same circular, concave shape from before. Then, her palm on the adjoining room’s door, she turns back to them. “Touch the orb to turn out the light,” she instructs, and then retreats, the door swishing shut behind her.

Shiro sits down on the bed with a relieved sigh, before heaving his legs up. The incline of the bed has him rolling towards the centre naturally, and the soft sheets below him seem to be infused with natural warmth.

“Would you get that, Keith?” Shiro asks, gesturing at the light. Keith’s frustrated about their lack of progress, he knows, so – whatever he can do to give him some purpose, even if it’s just touching his shoulder, or turning out a light – he’ll let him have it gladly.

Keith moves over to the orb, sneaking a glance backwards like he’s pretending not to be looking. Shiro meets him, ever attentive, and caught, Keith drops his gaze.

“I’ll take the ground,” he says, fingers skirting out towards the light, but they freeze at Shiro’s snort.

“You will not,” Shiro says hotly. He pats the padded bed with his arm. “Look at all this room!” He wiggles over towards the far edge, but soon finds himself slipping back towards the middle.

A tiny smile touches Keith’s mouth; Shiro’s willing to take that as a victory.

Keith’s fingers graze the orb, and there’s a sound like a sparking wire and Shiro’s attuned vision sees Keith yank his hand back with a yelp – and then the room is plunged into darkness.

“Fucking thing shocked me!” Keith says, high-pitched with indignation. He’s grumbling as he turns back towards Shiro and the bed, and Shiro hadn’t noticed before, but the whites of Keith’s eyes are a tiny bit reflective in the dark. They gleam faintly as Keith reaches him, pulling off bits of armour as he moves, and then with a final discontented murmur, Keith’s tumbling gracefully in until he can’t roll any further, reaching Shiro in the middle with a quick gasp of breath.

“Sorry,” Shiro says, scooting backwards. That draws another sound from Keith – relief, he thinks, from not having to be pressed up against him.

“It’s okay,” Keith mumbles, his head dropping forwards. He’s warm, running hot, and it radiates in the space between the two of them.

Shiro holds himself still, through his aching muscles demanding him to relax, through the stupid thoughts that remind him of how nice it would feel to run his fingers through Keith’s hair, to knead at his temples, to hold him to his chest gently.

At some point, he must fall asleep – though he makes sure it’s not before Keith drifts off, his shallow breathing smoothing out into longer, peaceful draws, and the furrow of his brow easing in the slackness of sleep.

*

Shiro wakes gently, the kind that passes over him in rolling waves, increments of wakefulness bringing him back to reality. He’s warm all around, something tickling his nose, and the last motion in his ritual of awakening is to open his eyes. 

It’s Keith’s hair, scratchy where it’s shoved against Shiro’s skin. And Keith’s body, tucked up against Shiro’s, Shiro’s single arm draped over his waist, his leg hooked between Keith’s underneath their tangle of blankets. 

Shiro freezes. Keith’s breathing is deep and steady; he’s still asleep, but his thighs tighten restlessly around Shiro’s as he tries to withdraw. Shiro feels hot all over, his face heating and heartbeat thundering through his ears at the unconscious sound that sighs through Keith’s lips as he curls his hand away.

He imagines Keith’s face, waking to find Shiro in his space; he imagines the brief terror that would flash through his eyes before being sealed away – and that’s enough to quell any thought other than to finish extracting himself from the bed. 

They leave early while the blizzard is clear, Neve tucking a set of coordinates for the cave, and another one for the return trip, into Shiro’s belt pouch.

There’s a path that trails up the mountain that’s suitable for two humans to traverse. It winds sharply up the side of the mountain, carved through a rickety crevasse of its own, dangerously icy steps that have seen better times.

Parts of the trail have been worn away; other parts have dropped away entirely, carved ice no longer able to support its own strength. Impossible for a regular Zalesian to overcome, but not for two paladins in their armour.

Or, at least, that’s what Shiro had thought as they’d started the trail at the crack of dawn, the blizzard easing just enough for them to pick their way cleanly to the base. But after half an hour, Keith’s looking paler than he was yesterday, sweat gathering in beads at his hairline, and with a determined hunch to his shoulders. The way that Keith’s got his gaze doggedly fixed on the ground, at plotting each next step, is more telling than Keith probably realises.

“Hey,” Shiro says, trying to be reassuring, “We’ll be out of here soon.”

It happens as they’re firing across a fallen-away arch of ice with their jetpacks; Shiro touches down first, then turns around for Keith who’s lagging a second behind.

The moment Keith lands, Shiro knows something’s wrong – there’s a splintered look of shock on his face, and then the ice abruptly crumbles and falls away.

“Keith!”

Shiro surges forward. To his overwhelmed senses, Keith’s falling in slow motion, the burst of his jetpack exhausted. The entire shelf’s cracking apart and Shiro’s on the cusp of overbalancing himself, his remaining arm scrabbling for purchase in the ice.

“Shiro!”

Keith’s falling. He catches himself on the edge of the platform, fist over gloved fist slapping fruitlessly against the slippery surface, because that’s splitting, too, hairline fractures roaring into deep gashes as the ice collapses.

Shiro doesn’t hesitate. Fixed on Keith’s face, heedless of the splintering shelf, he lunges towards him.

A glow of blue flashes from beneath; Shiro barely registers it, his hand wrapped around the frozen railing and his other outstretched towards Keith…too late, the void of his right arm enters his vision, the useless heavy lump of metal –

– and then the blue envelops him, glowing bright and then coalescing into pure, impermeable black, an inhuman facsimile of a hand that snakes to Keith and pulls him free.

Keith _flies_ to him, boosted by the black limb tangled around both his hands; he crashes into Shiro and then Shiro’s wrapping both his arms around him, soaring free into the open air with a boost from his armour.

They land in soft snow, finally on the mountain proper. Shiro’s heart thuds painfully in his chest, a sharp staccato beat as he gasps for breath.

Keith rolls off him with a small groan, flipping onto his back. He immediately sinks into the puffy snow.

They breathe together like that for a minute, the soft fall of snow from the atmosphere almost dreamily gentle, the whine of wind around the mountaintop punctured by their breaths, rough and overlapping, then slowing into sync.

Eventually, Keith evens out, hauling himself upright. He looks ethereal with the sun at his back, setting the soft clumps of rime on his armour aglow with sparkling fire. It’s on his shoulders, in his hair, and Shiro stares helplessly up at him.

“Your arm,” Keith says hoarsely, and that’s when Shiro remembers the thing that got them out of their near miss. His gaze skitters away from Keith and down.

It’s…well, it’s an arm, solid black flowing from the twisted stump of his Galra arm. It flickers a little, like black fire, but each slightly clawed finger follows Shiro’s command like it’s a natural extension of himself, flexing back and forth easily.

“It’s the bayard,” Shiro breathes. “I don’t remember – it just formed, I didn’t do anything.”

Keith smiles, and – it’s small, but it’s a real smile, and it steals Shiro’s breath away, delight shimmering in his eyes. “Looks like you’ve still got it, Black Paladin,” he says, and knocks Shiro lightly on the shoulder before extending a hand.

The end is in sight – as Shiro struggles to his feet, the mountain stretches out before him, no longer treacherous – nothing but the soft snow leading to the mouth of the cave, tucked in a sheltered crevice. It’s a long way up, but Shiro feels energised.

He keeps flexing his new hand as they trudge on – it feels strange, having that comforting weight after being unbalanced, and it seems to settle some of his residual overwrought jumpiness.

Keith doesn’t seem to share his satisfaction, though. With the immediate danger gone, storm clouds brew around him darker than ever. Shiro watches him raise a hand to his face, aborting at the last moment, clenching his fists. The smile’s gone, disappeared into the downturn of a frown.

“Keith, what’s wrong?” Shiro says finally.

Keith stops in the snow, letting out a frustrated breath that fogs the air they breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably, and Shiro can’t think of a singular reason why.

“It was my stupid decision to bring us down onto this planet,” Keith continues. They’re stopped now, the wind picking up and blowing flecks of rime in a dizzying eddy around them, across Keith’s flushed face and sweaty bangs. “If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be – I know you wouldn’t have – ”

“Keith,” Shiro interrupts, “I would have done exactly the same as you, in the circumstances.”

Keith’s shoulders droop.

“Don’t build me up to be something greater than I am,” Shiro says, gentler now. “You’re doing just fine.” He pauses, quieter still. “I admire you, you know.”

That sends a fresh wave of red rolling through Keith’s cheeks. He turns away from him.

Keith’s quiet for a few moments, then, speaks again with his face still turned away. “I’ve never seen the snow before,” he admits.

Shiro blinks. He shouldn’t be surprised – Keith grew up in the desert, of course – but Shiro’s been skiing almost as long as he’s been able to walk – and that part of him twists a little sadly.

“Huh,” he says, the threads of an idea beginning to form, and then he’s jogging forward, leaning down to scoop a handful of soft rime. He pads it around in his palm consideringly, back still turned to Keith, but when he’s ready, he spins around, letting loose.

The snowball lands with a dense splat against Keith’s breastplate before crumbling away – it’s not quite the same consistency as snow, Shiro mourns, but it’s close enough – and the effect is instantaneous.

Keith yelps, staggering back, then looks incredulously at him. “ _Shiro!_ ” he says.

Shiro grins, already forming another snowball in his hands. “What, can’t catch up with an old timer?” he taunts, and winds back again. This time, Keith dodges – barely – his boot catching in ankle-high snow and sending him stumbling.

“What are you _doing?_ ” Keith shouts, and the blue of his shield flickers momentarily in a panic before disappearing completely as Shiro laughs.

“Come on, you’re acting like you’ve never seen a snowball before!” Shiro says, “Oh – wait!” 

His laugh turns into a gasp as Keith lunges impressively towards him, his loosely packed snowball ringing Shiro straight on the nose.

He collapses dramatically into the snow, his laughter shifting into splutters as the snow flakes apart on his face.

The snowball fight turns more into a wrestling match as Keith tackles Shiro, who’s trying to wobble onto his feet, the two of them rolling in the drift. Keith’s flushed, his face red from the chill and their heat combined, but laughing as he shoves Shiro down, raking a spray of rime towards his head. Shiro spits out a mouthful, still choking with glee, and they tussle a while longer, rolling around and around until Keith hooks a thigh around Shiro’s, pinning him to the ground with a victorious, breathless shout.

“Alright, you got me,” Shiro says breathlessly. Keith’s eyes widen, colour high in his cheeks. “Though I think you kind of missed the point around this being a _snowball_ fight...”

Keith coughs out a winded laugh, but then, to Shiro’s alarm, he coughs again, doubling over against Shiro’s chest.

“Keith!”

Shiro pushes off the snow, hyper aware of the fact that Keith’s now practically sitting in his lap. Keith stifles a groan against his shoulder, a tiny sound Shiro wouldn’t have heard if he hadn’t felt the force of the vibration through his armour.

“Let’s just go,” Keith says weakly, “Before this gets any worse.”

They make it up the mountain and to the mouth of the cave somehow, and – whatever illness is afflicting Keith, it’s coming on stronger and stronger, sweat rolling from his forehead.

“It’s hot,” he complains, even while Shiro’s starting to feel the chill seeping even through his armour.

“Hold on, buddy,” he mutters sympathetically, and they cross inside.

*

The inside of the cave is suffused with a dim glow; the damp rocky walls dotted with the gleam of pearly rime crystals. They’re too small for their purposes, though – just flecks, compared to the type of crystal Neve had intimated at.

The further they go, the more Keith starts to lag behind, his steps faltering. His hands ride up, tugging at the wide collar of his paladin armour anxiously. His face is a blotchy red, stark even in the filtered gloom of the cavern.

“Shiro,” Keith says, his teeth glinting, “It’s – it’s hot.”

It’s not. It’s objectively freezing.

He stumbles towards Shiro, who swallows a curse and catches him. A thought strikes him as he touches his palm against Keith’s feverish forehead.

“Shit – Keith – I didn’t even consider,” Shiro says, voice cracking, “What if it’s something on this planet making you sick – I can’t believe I…I shouldn’t have…”

Keith uses Shiro’s arms to pull himself forward, continuing to stagger determinedly onwards.

“I think it’s the rime,” he says faintly, and fear twists Shiro’s guts.

“Let’s go back, then,” he says, and it comes out pleading. Keith’s not one to look out for himself, and especially not where he thinks he’s got to pay some kind of penance for his actions. The furious hunch of his shoulders tells Shiro his words are in vain.

“We’re so close,” Keith groans. The cave widens, the almost oppressive ceiling falling away into something much more cavernous and tall. “I just – I just need a second – ”

Keith takes a deep breath, and then tears at the clasp of his breastplate. It falls to the dirt ground with a dull _thunk_ , but even before it lands Keith’s already scrabbling at his under suit, softly grunting as he twists and pulls the zipper down in a single, fluid motion.

Shiro’s jaw drops. “Keith – what – ?”

Keith shucks the suit from his arms and fingers with a complicated shimmy, the floppy material bunched firmly – thankfully – around his hips. “It’s – _so hot_ ,” he whines, his voice catching on its own roughness, and Shiro has to swallow several times, trying not to look at his sweat-slick chest, the hollow of his collarbones where it gathers, glistening dimly.

“God – you’ll catch a cold, Keith,” Shiro croaks instead. 

But Keith shakes his head. “ _Hot_ ,” he repeats, and when Shiro’s eyes fasten onto his face again, Keith looks _out_ of it, his eyes slightly glazed and mouth parted, the glow from a nearby crystal catching on his teeth – on a sharp incisor. His pupils shrink while Shiro’s watching, then lengthen, and then it’s like yellow watercolour spilling across canvas, flooding across his eyes.

Shiro’s breath leaves him. _That’s the Keith I remember,_ flits through his thoughts like a half-remembered dream. He swallows.

“Fuck,” Keith says, some of the lucidity coming back into his voice, “I – fuck.” He’s staring down at his fingers, slender and long and pointed and _sharp_. His mouth opens; his extended fangs catch on his bottom lip. He closes his mouth.

“They all said…rime is an energy source, right?” Shiro fumbles forward, not sure if he should be trying to cover Keith up or hold him close. Keith jerks back though, the movement almost instinctual by the way he flinches at his own action, and Shiro pauses.

Oh. The last time Keith had been like this, it had been fuelled by pain and anger and pure desperation. This time, there isn’t that same emotional turmoil – at least, Shiro hopes there’s not – but there’s something else, a catalyst. Something Keith’s sensitive to.

“I think the rime is quintessence,” Shiro hurries out.

“Oh,” Keith says, “Oh.”

They’re in a cave full of supercharged crystallised rime, alone on a mountaintop covered by rime. They’ve been rolling around in it for hours.

“It – it always does this, when I – ” Keith swallows, “The exposure – fuck, I’m sorry – ”

Shiro wants to touch him, ground him, anything to calm the wild look in his eyes, but Keith cringes back in on himself, and Shiro hates, _loathes_ his body for the fear he sees in Keith’s eyes. His clawed, black hand falls limply to his side.

“Keith,” he whispers. 

“We need to – let’s get that crystal and get out of here,” Keith says. His teeth graze against his lips again as he talks, and the movement shocks a small noise from him, unbidden. He backs away again, his eyes wide and wild, casting over the cavern they’re in supernaturally fast.

“There,” he breathes, and Shiro can’t even fling out a hand to stop him before he’s stumbling forward.

Shiro curses. Keith’s footsteps are erratic and sloppy, but he moves fast, a fiery homing missile with single-minded determination.

The crystal Keith’s found is half buried at knee level in the dim corner of the cavern. Even buried as it is, it’s huge, easily the size of a watermelon, and its inner light pulses sluggishly at Keith’s approach.

Keith falls to his knees heavily, heedless of compacted soil thudding painfully against his armoured legs; he rakes into the crumbly wall with sharp claws.

“I’ve got it,” he pants, feverishly prying the crystal from its resting place once the wall’s loosened enough, “Look!”

He scoots around on his knees, turning in a circle, hefting the crystal towards Shiro with a victorious look on his face. He’s flushed, naked from the waist up, eyes so bright, and his arms are raised in offering as the crystal – a rough, cloudy hunk of pure, milky-white rime – pulses faster. He’s beautiful, Shiro thinks helplessly, tracking the bob of his throat as he swallows. 

The crystal flares bright in Keith’s hands, and then – to Shiro’s horror, the outside begins trickling through Keith’s fingers, rivulets pooling in his palms and escaping down his wrists. 

“It – it’s me,” Keith says, his voice breaking in panic, “Shiro!”

Shiro starts, shocked into action by the pleading sound that spills across Keith’s lips. “I’ve got it,” he says, gathering up the crystal from Keith’s hands, but it continues to run wet in his palms, faster against his bayard arm, so he casts about desperately. Seconds later, his gaze locks onto the discarded paladin armour.

He races to it, fairly tossing the piece of crystal in the cavity of the armour and praying for it to _stop melting in reaction to their added quintessence_ – a prayer that takes hold and is answered when the gleaming liquid seems to refreeze, the crystal solidifying once more.

Shiro blows out a harsh breath, a wisp of a laugh breezing out of his mouth. “Unbelievable,” he says. “It’s stopped, Keith. It’s working.”

He doesn’t hear a response.

“Keith?” Shiro lets go of the armour.

Keith’s still kneeling in the dirt, but his eyes are glassy, unfocused, and his mouth is slack, pointed teeth flashing against the pulse of rime all around them. On his wrists, where the crystal rime had melted and tracked all over him, there are rivulets of Galra purple that criss-cross his skin.

Guilt squeezes around Shiro’s heart, and this time, he wastes no time in going to Keith, gathering him up as gently as he can, curling his arms around and pulling until they’re both on their feet.

Keith groans into Shiro’s throat, his eyes squeezing shut. “Head hurts,” he says, and Shiro pats him soothingly on the back, Keith’s burning skin scorching through his glove.

It’s ironic, Shiro thinks, that Keith runs hot with exposure to quintessence, but the quintessence crystal’s melting point is Keith.

“I’ve got you,” Shiro whispers, and they start a limping walk back up to where the crystal lies cushioned in Keith’s armour. He manages to snap the clasp of it shut without dislodging Keith, and they stagger towards the mouth of the cave like that, one arm cradling the crystal and the other wrapped in a firm hold

Keith grows more and more frazzled as they make their way to the entrance of the cave, leaning against Shiro harder but in equal parts trying to pull away. Shiro keeps his arm tight, and Keith eventually folds in.

He lets out a low moan as the glaring light of the mountain hits them again – the unmuffled noise a sure sign of how far gone he is – and twists unhappily in Shiro’s grip. 

“’M sorry,” Keith says blurrily, the words caught where his mouth presses up against Shiro’s armour.

Shiro holds him just that little bit tighter. “You don’t need to apologise for anything,” he tells him.

“Wish you didn’ have to deal with this,” Keith slurs, wobbly. His head is pressed hard against Shiro now, face buried against his shoulder. Hidden away. “I know you hate it. I know you’re scared of me.” His hands are curled inwards, almost human looking if not for the sharp points Shiro can imagine digging into tender flesh.

Shiro’s heart beats very fast.

“Keith?” he voices, softly.

There’s no answer, only Keith curling even closer towards him, breath puffing unevenly against his chest.

Keith had been distant, wary of his touch after the facility. Shiro could accept that. Who could come back from something like that and still look at him the same way? He’d known Keith was trying, still stubbornly trying to let Shiro in, but...

What if he was wrong?

What if Keith had been keeping his distance out of some misguided attempt to protect him, instead?

With a trembling hand, Shiro touches his fingers to damp locks of hair. Keith shivers, and it’s a move Shiro would have taken for rejection if he hadn’t been paying close attention – to the way Keith arches so slightly towards him, straining towards his fingertips ever so subtly even as Shiro moves them away for another stroke through sweaty strands.

“Let’s get off this mountain,” Shiro says, squeezing his arm around Keith. “And then…”

Keith stumbles; his harsh breathing gives no indication that he’s heard him.

Shiro holds him tight. “We’ll talk more, after,” he promises.

*

“You’re back,” are the first words Neve says as they stumble into the bunker at the new coordinates, Keith’s arm slung over his shoulders and sheer determination practically the only thing keeping him standing. The storm had whipped itself into a frenzy again by the time they’d reached the location; if it hadn’t been for Shiro spotting the wisp of smoke emerging from a column in the ground, he wasn’t sure how they would have made it safely to the bunker.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Shiro grunts, dropping Keith’s armour at her feet so he can wrap a second arm more securely around Keith. He debates picking him up.

The origin of the smoke that Shiro had spotted is a roaring fire, painting the inside of the room – decidedly larger than that of the base camp, and far more homely compared to the previously spartan décor – with warm, flickering light. With the high arch of the ceiling and the muted, soft colours of the walls, Shiro can almost imagine it as a winter cabin, protectively insulating them from the blizzard outside.

“Your friend – is he – ?”

Shiro redirects his attention. “You didn’t say that the rime contained quintessence,” he snaps, struggling to keep the growl from his voice.

The alien rears back, carapace flaring. “I thought it was common knowledge,” she says. “It is the common currency of the universe. Forgive me. I didn’t realise he was sensitive to quintessence.”

Shiro grits his teeth, ready to argue back, but he stops when Keith stirs by his shoulder. His head bumps against Shiro’s chest.

“Sh’ro,” he mumbles, “What’re you…so angry about?”

Shiro softens immediately.

“He needs to lie down,” he tells Neve, “Preferably away from all that rime.”

Neve dips her head and beckons them towards a connecting room – a bedroom, judging from the fixed circular bed taking up most of the space there.

“Exposure to quintessence occurs with the raw material,” she tells Shiro as he walks Keith over to the bed. “The surface of the rime isn’t stable enough to contain leakage.”

“Right,” Shiro says. Keith slips away from his shoulders, rolling bonelessly into the divot of the bed. Shiro’s side feels cold from where Keith had been pressed against him. “So, that means – ”

“Refined rime will not hurt him,” Neve says, the chime of her voice lowering in sympathy. “He will recover with sufficient rest.”

Shiro looks to Keith, and – his eyes have already fluttered closed, his lips parted, a pointed incisor just barely digging into the chapped surface of his lower lip. He’s still bare from the waist, but not sweating anymore, so Shiro pulls a fluffy, woven blanket over his chest, tucking it just under Keith’s chin.

Keith’s eyebrows crinkle and then smooth out; Shiro reaches out gently, and brushes the stray strands of hair away from his forehead. 

He follows Neve back into the first room, taking the opportunity to finally look around. It’s clearly a living space, a huge rug cushioning the sterile, solid ground; what looks like a kitchen and dining area pushed up against the corner of another wall. Finally – the knick-knacks that dot the room: pieces of clear, glass-like pottery and other fantastical, flowing sculptures line the walls and shelves all over.

“What is this place?” Shiro asks quietly.

Neve is at the counter, pouring a steaming, amber liquid into two seemingly glass cups. Wordlessly, she passes one to Shiro, who accepts it gratefully, and begins sipping at the other. The cup warms his hand, but it’s far lighter than real glass, and when Shiro looks carefully, the material seems to refract and glitter in light that isn’t there.

“This is my home,” Neve says. “My family lived here, once. Now, only I do…but it is a good place.” She drains her glass. “And it is one of few places in this sector with a functioning rime kiln and workshop.” 

“Well – I hope this works for you,” Shiro says, and he gestures towards the abandoned chest piece. “I’d get it out for you, but it just starts melting when I touch it.”

Neve pads her way over, crouching down and humming her way thoughtfully as she figures out the clasp.

When it springs open, every single segment of Neve’s shell goes rigid, completely still.

A prickle of uncertainty touches Shiro.

“Neve?”

The alien touches her long fingers to the crystal rime reverently; the crystal seems to shiver under her touch, glowing a fraction brighter.

“It’s perfect,” she whispers, and turns to Shiro. “Thank you, paladin, for indulging an old woman in her passion. I didn’t think I would see another piece of crystal rime in my lifetime.”

Shiro sinks into a plush chair; it’s made of the same woven material as the blankets that seem to seep warmth into his very bones. “You’re welcome,” he says.

Neve lifts the crystal. “As promised, you will have your energy source, and the coordinates to the take-off site tomorrow,” she replies. Rising to her feet, she pads towards a wall, touching a tiny clear cube that sits on the display shelf there; it whirs for a moment, some mechanism on the inside coming to life, and then soft music flows forth, a slow, low hum like the sound of wet fingers running along the rim of a wineglass.

“Make yourself at ease here.”

Then, Neve’s gone from the room, the crystal clasped respectfully in her hands as she leaves.

Shiro tips his head back with a soft sound. With the warmth of the chair sinking in, and the soft music playing, the exhaustion of the day catches up to Shiro, and without meaning to, his eyes slide shut.

When he shakes himself back into wakefulness, the song is still playing and the fire is still going as strong as ever, but there’s a new figure seated in front of it, his back to Shiro.

Keith’s under suit is on again, but the zipper on his back is only done halfway up, like he’d made a half-hearted attempt before giving up.

“Keith,” Shiro calls out softly.

Keith whips around, startled.

The yellow in his eyes has faded a little, as has the plummy, feverish flush to his cheeks, but Keith still looks nervous in the flickering firelight.

Shiro stands up and Keith follows him. With unwavering steps, Shiro crosses the room to him, reaching up with his hands to his shoulders, slipping past them to hook Keith into his chest in a tight hug.

“You’re okay,” Shiro says, not knowing if he’s trying to comfort Keith or himself. So he says it again, for both of them.

Slowly, tentatively, Keith wraps his arms around Shiro as well, linked above his shoulders, burying his face in Shiro’s chest.

The music box ticks to a stop, and then starts anew, a slow, sentimental tune that floats towards them. 

Shiro’s hands move on Keith’s back, pausing at the sharp intake of breath as he accidentally skates over exposed skin.

Something’s changed in the mood between them, a tenuous connection.

“Want me to do that up for you?” Shiro says, his voice pitched low. He touches a finger to the zipper.

“…Yes, please,” Keith murmurs against him, and Shiro slides his hands up his back, pulling his suit closed until the zipper rests at the back of Keith’s neck. He lowers his arms again after, looping together and resting around Keith’s hips.

Keith draws back just enough so he can look at Shiro in the eyes, peering up at him through his eyelashes.

“Thank you,” he says.

Shiro smiles, a small, soft, thing, and leans forward, resting his forehead against Keith’s. It shocks another surprised sound from him, but Keith’s hands betray his honesty, his forearms squeezing tight against the back of Shiro’s neck.

The music sings and they rock back and forth, Shiro’s arms around Keith’s waist and Keith’s around Shiro’s shoulders, gently swaying through the melody spilling through the air. 

There are no words – no need for any – just their bodies moving in time, sacred and special as the gentle moment between them. 

Shiro opens his eyes – they’d slid shut during their slow dance, more of a quiet shuffle – and he catches Keith looking up at him, a dusting of red high on his cheekbones. The red bleeds into his skin further when Shiro locks onto him, fond and endeared all at once.

The proximity is intoxicating; Shiro can feel the warmth of Keith’s forehead against his, the puff of Keith’s breath against his face. If he tilts in, just a little further, he could…

The music stops, and Keith’s eyes, drawing half-closed, snap wide. He jerks back.

“Keith,” Shiro says, hushed but with enough force to bring Keith’s gaze back to him. “Why would you think that I’d be scared of you?”

Keith’s tongue comes out, swipes a nervous stripe across his dry lips.

Shiro waits.

“Maybe – maybe not scared,” Keith says, rushing into the silence, his body a tense line against Shiro’s. “But…it’s _that_ me that hurt you. The Galra – they’ve only hurt you. I…”

His hands fist against Shiro’s neck. “I never want you to see me like that. I don’t want to be like that for you. I – I just – ”

Keith moves, like he wants to pull away. But now that Shiro’s got him, he doesn’t want to let go – doesn’t want to lose the quickly unravelling thread that he’s been picking at.

“Are you afraid of me?” he says softly, intensely. He has to understand.

Keith stops moving. “What?” he says. “No, why would I – ”

Shiro touches his cheek, thumbing at the thin, jagged scar. Keith swallows.

“No, Shiro. You,” Keith says again. “You mean too much to me. I could never.”

He hesitates. “Even if you hate this,” he tosses his head agitatedly, the dulling yellow of his eyes glistening in the light, “Even if you’re uncomfortable. Or if you want space. I – I can do that. I’ve been trying. But I’m still. I’ll still…”

Keith squeezes his eyes shut. He barely seems to be breathing. “I’m not good at this like you,” he whispers. “I screw things up. I don’t want to screw this up.”

Realisation floods through Shiro, liquid heat flooding in his veins.

“You won’t,” he says fiercely. “Keith, you’re so good, you have no idea. You’ve done so much for me. You’ve saved me, so many times. How could I hate you? How could I want to be away from you?”

He smooths the hair from Keith’s face, tucking long strands behind his ear, feeling its soft texture, anything to keep touching him. He can’t stop now that he’s started. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Shiro says, his voice hitching with the certainty behind it.

Keith’s eyes are stubbornly clamped shut, so, tenderly, Shiro touches their foreheads together again. “I’m here,” he breathes, “I’m here because of you. I’m here because of who you are. Keith, please,” he cups Keith’s cheeks, his voice a soft whisper, “I’m here because you love me…”

Keith’s eyes fly open, violet swimming in his gaze. Shiro can’t help but smile, tilting in, “…And because I love you.”

Keith’s eyes go wide, and wider and wider as Shiro inches closer, noses bumping, their mouths…Shiro waits, a scant breath away from pressing their lips together, eyes crinkling, lips curving upwards. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say,” Shiro whispers against Keith’s lips, “I love you.”

Keith surges to him, fingers twisting into his scalp, his lips dry and cracked, but when Shiro curls his tongue out, swiping against his mouth, he opens, warm and wet and beautiful in his arms.

Shiro’s body is so warm, the chill of the planet chased away by the weight of Keith wrapped around him; the point of contact between his mouth and Keith’s sending sparks of fire, frissons through his skin. He surfaces, breathing hard, his heat of his cheeks surely matching the pretty flush on Keith’s face.

“I didn’t know,” Keith says, “I didn’t think – ”

Shiro swallows his words with another kiss, and this time, Keith leans into him, hungrily mapping the shape of his mouth, clutching him tightly.

“I didn’t think it would feel this good,” Keith gasps when they break apart.

“Which part?” Shiro asks, “The kissing? The confession?” He breaks into a silly smile, “I can do both again if you like…”

Happiness is bubbling up within him, and he’s giddy with the reality of it, of Keith safe, of their bodies perfectly slotted together.

“The part where I get to have this,” Keith whispers, ducking into Shiro’s chest. “Where I get to have you.”

“You’ve always had me,” Shiro murmurs back, into the top of his tangled hair. “You always will.”

By the time they get back to the bedroom, Shiro’s mouth is red and tender; bruised where Keith’s sharp teeth had grazed his lip hard. Keith had apologised, stricken, but Shiro had only leaned in to firmly return the favour, swirling his tongue over the bite to soothe it. And that – that had done something to Keith, his breath hitching and eyes darkening, hazy with need.

In the darkness, though, their kisses become something gentler, exploratory rather than desperate. The dip of the bed threatens to press them into each other, and this time, Shiro doesn’t fight it, reaching for Keith and with his heart thrilling inside him as Keith tangles them together. 

“How’s your headache?” Shiro says when they draw back.

“It’s fine,” Keith says, then swallows guiltily at Shiro’s frown. “It’s still there, just…more manageable than before.”

He sighs with pleasure when Shiro moves his fingers, kneading into his temples. They’re chill against Keith’s flushed skin, and he hums as Shiro’s fingertips graze against his cheek.

“That’s perfect, Shiro,” he whispers, and Shiro melts for him, pressing his lips into Keith’s forehead. He loses himself in the quiet, breathy sounds, sighs of appreciation that, too, eventually lose themselves to the soft fold of sleep.

*

Neve presents them with a cylinder in the morning, a clear tube that has, suspended within it, a brilliantly cut gem, no larger than an apple but completely translucent – if not for the fire it throws with every movement of Neve’s hand.

“Is that…?” Shiro inches closer, but Neve surprises him by pressing the cylinder into his hand.

“Something for you,” she says. “Refined crystal rime, fuel enough for any craft, enough to reach the take-off zone.”

Shiro looks down, rolling it between his fingers. It twinkles and flashes with flecks of orange and blue, multifaceted and sharp like a diamond, but pulsing with an inner light. He passes it to Keith, who takes it cautiously.

“Don’t worry,” Neve says, her luminous eyes blinking, “Quintessence does not leach from refined rime unless it is directed to.”

The blizzard is furious in comparison to the mildness of the day before; it blankets the landscape with a curtain of rime so thick Shiro can hardly tell the sky from the land. Neve takes them in her craft, though, a low-riding vehicle that blazes through the snow with a similar cylinder of rime plugged into the dashboard.

When they reach the Black Lion again, the wind is howling and she’s half buried in rime, paws and body and tail sunken like quicksand.

With the vial in hand, Keith leaps to his feet, clearly eager to reach his ticket off-planet. Smiling, Shiro starts to follow, but a gentle hand on his arm stops him.

“I kept the rime you found, as was the deal,” Neve says. “But I have one more thing to give you.”

She touches Shiro’s hand, and when his palm opens, she places something small in it. A dark disc, smooth to the touch with a groove and hinge running along the middle of it; and when Shiro touches it, the top tilts open, and –

“It is jewellery,” Neve says quietly. Her eyes flicker past Shiro, to the open hatch of the Black Lion. “For you and a loved one.”

Two rings sit nestled in the box, one larger and one smaller, both shining a misty white. When Shiro passes a finger over one reverently, it reacts, the light within momentarily flaring to his touch.

He looks at Neve, heart in his throat.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she continues softly. “They act like Zalesian shell-bands. They are attuned to the wearer’s quintessence, and grow brighter with proximity, dimmer with distance or – or departure.”

The bands of rime around Neve’s carapace are clear as glass.

When Shiro blinks, there’s heat behind his eyes, a sting of wetness. “Thank you,” he chokes out, clutching the box. His voice is thick. “Thank you, so much.”

Neve merely smiles at him. “Thank _you_ , paladin,” she says. “You have brought back some fond memories for me.”

Shiro’s sure his answering smile is more watery than it should be. “I need to go,” he says, tucking the ring box securely into his pouch, “But I’m sure we can do something about your satellite on the way out.”

Neve’s laugh tinkles like wind chimes on a summer day. “I’d like to see that,” she says, and Shiro drops her a final nod, before turning and jetting towards the Lion.

*

After everything they’ve been through, lift-off and leaving the planet is almost laughably easy. Black opens a port for the crystal to sit, and when Keith slots the cylinder in, the Lion comes to life, shaking off the coat of snow like it’s nothing and roaring defiantly at the quintessence-laden rime buffeting them from all directions.

The flight to the safe zone is simple, the trajectory upwards even easier. Shiro flicks off the short-range comms that buzz to life with a hailing frequency from the Representatives, and Keith guns it for the weather satellite orbiting the planet; the requested destruction from the Black Lion turned towards a better purpose instead.

With the satellite destroyed, and from the viewport overlooking Zaleg, they watch together as the white cover of the planet disappears, storm clouds misting into non-existence.

A few minutes later, all of the holo-screens of the Black Lion stutter to life.

“Keith,” Lance squawks into the communicator, “You’re here! What did you _do_?”

“The snow stopped, and then a second later the comms are back online,” Hunk says, then stops to squint at the screen, pulling himself closer. “Wait! Shiro, what happened to your arm?!”

Excited chatter babbles through the Black Lion, and when he catches Keith’s expression, grinning boyishly up at him, Shiro laughs, warm all over.

“It’s a long story,” he says, “But we’ve got time while the rest of the Lions power up.”

*

At Keith’s request, the video feed connecting all the Lions is off as they fly through cold space. There had been little fuss, the rest of the team still captured by Shiro’s tale of their last few days, although Shiro catches Pidge’s calculating, considering look just before the screens switch off.

Shiro can’t bring himself to care with Keith curled up in his lap, guiding the Black Lion with expert hands.

_(“Why am I the one who has to sit here?” Shiro had asked, only jokingly, and Keith had smirked back at him._

_“Because, big guy,” he’d said, “If it was the other way around, I’d be crushed and I wouldn’t be able to see where we’re going.”_

_Then, he’d paused, biting his lip. “I mean – you’re okay with this, right?”_

_And Shiro had wrapped his arms around him. “Yeah, Keith,” he’d said. “I’m okay.”)_

They fly through space together; Shiro sees glimpses of Keith’s face from behind, relaxed and loose. He’s warm again, bathed in it, and when Keith picks up his hands and curls them around the Black Lion’s controls, he breathes shakily against Keith’s back, and then more unevenly as Black responds, thrumming gently with a purr that reaches the far corners of his mind.

“Thank you,” he says, over and over again, overcome, and Keith twists around, holding him tight.

They fly towards Earth, and Shiro is no longer recursive, but hurtling free. No longer spinning in circles, but flying higher and higher.

Shiro looks at Keith and thinks of a little box with two glimmering rings in his pouch, and for the first time in a long time, he lets himself dream of the future.

**Author's Note:**

> My tropes were:
> 
>   * Flirtatious snowball fight
>   * Family business
>   * Slow dancing
>   * “Why I love you” speech
>   * Shirtless hero
> 

> 
> I dedicate this fic to my partner who patiently listened to me talking about my fic and then described Neve’s jewellery as a ‘big sad mood ring’ because, honestly, I haven’t gotten over it yet ☹.


End file.
